Review: Loopmasters Progressive House & Future Tech

I am not exactly sure by what standards something is called progressive house or future tech these days so I guess it’s a good idea to drop some names to get an idea of what type of sound you can expect.

From the Loopmasters website:

Progressive House & Future Tech is influenced by the more progressive club sounds of artists such as Pryda, The Swedish House Mafia, Funkagenda, Daniel Portman, Michael Woods, Alex Kenji, EDX, and the legendary sounds of Deadmau5.

This collection of royalty free samples includes everything between Progressive and the Main Room side of Tech House as pioneered by artists such as Tiger Stripes, Bingo Players, D Ramirez, Mark Knight, John Dahlback, and labels such as Noir, Toolroom, Stealth, Poker-Flat, Sneekerz, Get Physical, Nervous, and Spinnin.

Progressive House & Future Tech includes over 1,100 loops and samples:

The loops folder structure is uncomplicated and easy to browse. There are category folders for bass, chords/stab, drum, etc., for the two tempos offered (128 and 130 bpm). Same thing with the single sound folders, everything is straightforward and painless to find.

The sounds of Progressive House & Future Tech are generally quite minimal, though there is a generous amount of the type of melodic content you would expect from a progressive sample library. Where applicable everything has been key labeled.

Even though most of the samples are quite short (2 bars), many chord/stab and lead loops have those typical build-up/breakdown type elements and a few also have variations for easy construction of sequences. The drum loops are quite varied, including variations such as top/no-kick loops. For pushing the beat even harder the pads section has some useful side chain effected loops.

The collection of single sounds is a valuable addition, especially when using the included sampler patches. Each one of the 20 multi-sample synth patches uses only 4 samples, yet they work surprisingly well and cover a lot of ground.

Check the Loopmasters demo below to get an impression of the sounds of Progressive House & Future Tech.

So what do I think?

Progressive House & Future Tech isn’t marketed as a construction kit library, but it sure has all the production ready loops and samples of one.

Andy Lee has done a lovely job creating tons of loops that match perfectly stylistically, without getting too repetitive. The melodic content is solid and the drum loops are great for mixing & mashing. I had a short session in Ableton Live just throwing loops in left and right and I was amazed how well everything worked together with minimal effort.

Highlight for me are the synth (chord/stab & lead) loops. Totally inspiring, offering more than sufficient variation both melodically and sound wise.

In short, a quality package with plenty of exciting material for your electronic music productions.